


Day 4: War

by vampirepunks



Series: Blood & Water: Moments from N7 Month [4]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Ficlet, Gen, Interviews, Pre-Canon, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Shepard Twins (Mass Effect), Tumblr Prompt, War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27396628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampirepunks/pseuds/vampirepunks
Summary: "A number of the stories I’ve heard from the Blitz survivors refer to you as ‘The Red Horseman’ of Elysium..."Jane sits down with a military history author to talk about the Skyllian Blitz, a few years later.
Series: Blood & Water: Moments from N7 Month [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2000095
Kudos: 2





	Day 4: War

She toys her bangs in her fingers as the interviewer collects herself, setting up microphones and scanning her eyes over her list of questions. Jane hates interviews, but this is her first chance to speak about Elysium since the buzz around it quieted down and the colony started recovering. A well-known military history author, Barbara Ellicott, pinged her two weeks ago. She's independent of the Alliance but good at knowing what questions to ask without getting stonewalled over confidentiality. John encouraged her to take the interview since they’d both read her book on the First Contact War. It was one of few that mentioned their father. By that merit, she just might be respectable enough to give her the full story. 

The woman adjusts her skirt and takes a seat, folding her hands gracefully in her lap. Her face holds taciturn wisdom, age lines mapping her skin, but her brown eyes are as bright and wide as though she were no older than twenty. 

“Lt. Commander Jane Shepard,” Ellicott says, wearing a gentle smile. “I’m so pleased you accepted my request for an interview. First things first, I hear you’ve rejected several other interviews. Why accept now?” 

“Frankly, I accepted because you were the first person to ask that seems to respect war as it is, not as the public wants to see it,” Jane says, relaxing into her chair. 

“What makes you say that?” 

“I read your book on the First Contact War. It’s one of few that remains focused on both sides of the issue. You seem to recognize that in a battle, there are no good guys and bad guys. There’s just the fight,” Jane says, crossing her arms. 

“I see. Admittedly, I tire of the particular bias many of my fellow authors indulge in. History has two sides to every story,” says Ellicott. 

Jane nods, waiting for her to start asking the real questions. 

“Alright, let’s get started,” Ellicott continues, crossing her ankles. “A number of the stories I’ve heard from the Blitz survivors refer to you as ‘The Red Horseman’ of Elysium. When did the nickname first start, and what does it mean to you?” 

Jane runs a subtle hand over her ribs, pondering the inscription tattooed there. 

_ “And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to her that sat thereon to take peace for the earth, and there was given unto her a great sword.”  _

The tattoo artist had argued that changing a verse of the Bible to fit your own meaning was heresy, but Jane was born and raised faithless. The reverence of it all, of the supposed prophecy behind it, that never meant anything to her. What mattered was the weight it carried with it. The bloodshed, the victory, the Star of Terra they hung around her neck, the promotion and prestigious posting that came with it. She’ll never forget the face of the woman that coined the name. She’d had no idea what it meant at the time, but the name spread amongst the ramshackle civilian troops as an exalting victory cry. 

“It’s a reference to the Bible. The first time they called me that… It was on the ground, just after the battle. It was sheer chance that I was there at all. Me and the civilian fighters, we stood there, amongst the fallen, human and batarian blood soaking the soil... And this woman, she looked to be in her mid-thirties… She wiped the blood from her face, raised her gun to the sky, and said God had sent me to save them. She said I was the prophetic red horseman of war, and there was this moment of dead silence among the rest… but then they all started cheering, as we realized it was really over. ‘Long live the Red Horseman,’ they chanted,” Jane laughs then, and says, “I think it was just the adrenaline and the excitement. Nobody expected us to live to tell the tale, and here was this redheaded N7 that started rounding people up to fight back. People wanted to see me as a hero, and the name stuck. It’s all a bit… dramatic. Silly, really.” 

“That’s quite a story, Commander. So, you say they wanted to see you as a hero… You don’t see yourself that way?”

She chews on the inside of her lip. “I was just somebody that got angry and had a way with words. I was fucking pissed, slavers raiding a colony in broad daylight, gunning people down in the streets, tying children up and taking them... It was horrible. Somebody had to act. I just had the experience and the nerve, is all.” 

“I see. Now, your father, Major Isaac Shepard…” 

Jane stiffens in her seat, chews the inside of her lip harder, waiting for her to continue. 

“He was one of the Second Fleet’s finest heroes, and clearly the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. There’s your brother’s survival on Akuze, your victory during the Skyllian Blitz… Knowing that your father paid the ultimate price for humanity's victory during the final battle of Shanxi, did you feel you were following his legacy during the battle for Elysium?” 

Jane takes a sharp breath and says, “No. Because I didn’t have two infant children with no mother to think about first. Unlike him, I didn’t surrender my life for a cause I started questioning the point of, and unlike my father, I lived to tell the story, I didn’t--” she stops, stifles a sob. 

“I know this is a difficult conversation,” Ellicott says, handing her a tissue. “Let’s take a short break.” 


End file.
